Facebook rides mobile ad sales to earnings of $885M

5:27 PM,
Apr. 23, 2014

Facebook reported first-quarter earnings of $885 million.

Written by

Jon Swartz
Gannett

SAN FRANCISCO - Facebook continued its magic carpet ride of mobile revenue on Wednesday with boffo results.

The company reported first-quarter earnings of $885 million (34 cents per share) on revenue of $2.5 billion. Analysts expected a profit of 24 cents and $2.36 billion in revenue. A year ago, Facebook rang up a profit of 12 cents and revenue of $1.46 billion.

The difference maker is mobile, where Facebook's advertising business is in better shape than anyone would have imagined six months ago. Nearly 60 percent of the company's ad sales come from mobile devices. When Facebook went public ...